


Taking Risks

by Cornerofmadness



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, False Accusations, Fix-It, Gen, Malcolm Bright Gets a Hug, Malcolm Bright Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-17 20:13:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29477523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cornerofmadness/pseuds/Cornerofmadness
Summary: If Malcolm can’t clear his name, he knows he’ll be going to prison where his chances of survival are slim.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20
Collections: Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2021





	Taking Risks

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vanillafluffy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanillafluffy/gifts).



> **Disclaimer:** Not mine, Chris Fedak and Sam Sklaver owns it
> 
> **Notes:** Written for vanillafluffy in comment_fic and the prompt Prodigal Son, Malcolm Bright, Risky Business and for my hurt comfort bingo prompt, false accusations. Also written for International Fanwork Day 2021 and is a bit of a fix-it fic (you'll know it when you see it).

This was risky. Malcolm knew that. No, it went beyond risky. He was supposed to be home under house arrest and here he was sneaking into the morgue. Well, striding in like he belonged to get through the front door. After that, he slithered through the shadows, hoping no one noticed him. If someone did, it was over. He wouldn’t be transported back to his mother’s home. He’d be put back in a holding cell; worse, they’d rescind his bail and he’d go into Riker’s with his father. He wasn’t going to get lucky enough to be put in isolation. Whoever was framing him wanted him gone. He’d be in gen pop and a bounty would be on his head.

There was a good chance he could die. A shiver spun along his spine. He needed to stay unseen. He shouldn’t have come but answers were only going to be found here. Malcolm never had much luck but what little he had held until he made it to Edrisa’s office. She let out a squeal until he pressed a finger to his lips. She covered her mouth with both hands and almost barked her knee on the edge of her desk in her haste to get up.

Edrisa shoved her door shut and threw the lock before capturing him in a hug. Too shocked to return it, Malcolm managed to extricate himself. No one he knew was this physically demonstrative and he didn’t know how to deal with it. 

“What are you doing here, Bright? If they see you-”

“Yes, I’m well aware, Edrisa. I need your help. We have to figure out-”

She whipped up her hand. “Gil and the others are on their way for the autopsy results on Eddie. They’ll be here any second. I just popped in here for a coffee.”

“They can’t see me.” His chest tightened. He couldn’t make _his_ team be the one to rearrest him. Gil’s disappointment in him might kill him. 

With a huge grin, Edrisa said, “I know where you can hide.”

Malcolm hid where she suggested. She couldn’t promise he’d overhear them talking but there was a chance. Gil’s voice rang like a bell, JT too. Dani’s voice came to him too muffled to hear much. Given Edrisa’s reaction, maybe it was better that way. The facts whipped through Malcolm mind. How could they possibly have his DNA? He knew he hadn’t laid a hand on Eddie. JT and Dani had pulled his father off the man and he hadn’t touched him in Claremont. He had chickened out of going into the hospital room. He’d merely stood just inside the door, too frightened by his own rage, by the fact he might have been capable of finishing what his father had started. He had _wanted_ too. Eve deserved better. 

Where had his DNA come from? He had volunteered his DNA earlier just to prove his point: he was innocent. Maybe that was where it came from, how they had found something to make a match. There might have been tissues under Eddie’s nails but it wasn’t his. How in the world could Dani and JT not ask to see his body? That was standard procedure. Ask to see his arms, neck and face at the very least but they hadn’t. They said they didn’t want it to be him. They also said the killing fit him. _Thanks for nothing_. Malcolm hated to think Mom was right. They weren’t his friends but how could he have been _so_ wrong about that? No, maybe they were just that shook up by this. They weren’t thinking straight. That explained the lapse in procedure and their doubt, right? 

When he got home, he’d call Gil. Tell him to bring a CSU photographer. He’d stand there in his underwear and let them take all the photos they needed to prove he had no cuts on him. There was no way in hell Eddie scratched him. So how did the lab results come back that way? Malcolm had some ideas forming in his head when he heard Edrisa say “How much of that did you hear?”

Assuring her it was enough, Malcolm listened with half an ear as she complained about Dani. He was in no mood to defend her. He got that Dani had trust issues and she thought he was lying to her. If she only knew…. Edrisa saw things in a bit more binary way, his side and not on his side. He always knew where he’d find Edrisa. If she ever crossed over to the other side, he’d know he had screwed up beyond belief.

Her answers to his questions about her team helped to gel the suspicions already in his mind. He spared a second to think about the fact that Edrisa sang karaoke. He had done that a few times at Harvard, enjoyed it. If he didn’t end up in prison, maybe he’d find a way to get himself invited out for it without making it seem like a date. He liked Edrisa but right now him dating was a bad idea. Look how it worked out for Eve. Still, he’d like to go out singing. Maybe if he invited Gil along too…Gil had a great voice. 

Why was he thinking of this? He was likely going to be doing twenty-five to life unless he could turn this around. There was no point in planning a future if he didn’t figure out what was going on. Malcolm’s brain seized on the name Corbell Laboratories and that all they could find out about them was who their outside counsel was. Bingo! That wasn’t normal. That was a group with something to hide. How could someone frame him using DNA? They bought out the lab. Oh god, what if they had been doing that for multiple cases? Who had been framed and were innocent in jail? Who had been guilty and let go? His stomach flipped at the thought. He’d heard of cases like that where DNA had been faked, had been purchased, back when he worked for the FBI. It was the worst-case scenario. 

He knew that he wasn’t going to get anything further here but he knew where to go next. Endicott wasn’t going to take him down without a fight. Almost as if reading his mind, Edrisa blurted out, “Don’t die.”

That made it somehow more real that he might. Even to his ears his promise not to sounded uncertain. He could die so easily and never prove he wasn’t his father’s son, that he wasn’t a murderer. The thought shook him and then suddenly Edrisa’s arms were around him again.

Malcolm hugged her back this time, hard, taking comfort in her nearness. She smelled of soap and body fluids and he didn’t care. He needed this closeness. Edrisa’s embrace chased away his fears, strengthened his resolve. He slipped out of her domain the same way he went in. Up next, the lawyer his mother had in her phone contacts as ‘the devil.’ Seemed apt. He had what he needed, leverage. Endicott had no idea what he unleashed when he had Eve murdered and framed him. Malcolm was going to show him why mixing it up with a Whitly was always a bad idea, no matter which one you cared to cross. He would clear his name or die trying.


End file.
